Rantoul, Illinois Village Officials appear to be more concerned with finding ways to deny and delay public records requests than they are with providing the actual records.  The Village routinely takes months to respond to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests from Check CU, and the heavily-delayed responses often deploy unlawful exemptions.

In a FOIA request sent to the Village on March 24^th, 2022 Check CU asked for: ”All police reports, video, and images related to an incident that occurred on or around August 4th, 2015 regarding an armed robbery and eventual officer involved shooting in Rantoul.”

In the 2015 incident, a police officer shot and killed a man whom he thought was holding a firearm, but was actually holding a pipe.

Check CU sent the records request directly to the Village FOIA Officer and Clerk, Janet Gray.  Though state law requires a public body to respond to requests within five business days, more than three weeks have passed and Rantoul has not supplied any records.

Instead of supplying the records, Clerk Gray handed the request over to Rantoul Village Attorney David Wesner, who declared that Check CU was a “recurrent requester”, and that he was planning to significantly delay the Village’s response.  Wesner and Gray have used this tactic on nearly every FOIA request sent by Check CU in the past four months.

FOIA does have a special provision which permits a public body the ability to declare someone a “recurrent requester”, but it is illegal to apply that standard to news media and non-profits.  Check CU Founder Christopher Hansen made clear in his request (and every prior FOIA request back to October 2021) that he was a writer for CheckCU.org, and that the records would be used to write articles and provide information to the public.

From Illinois statute (5 ILCS 140/2)(g):

“Recurrent requester”, as used in Section 3.2 of this Act, means a person that, in the 12 months immediately preceding the request, has submitted to the same public body (i) a minimum of 50 requests for records, (ii) a minimum of 15 requests for records within a 30-day period, or (iii) a minimum of 7 requests for records within a 7-day period. For purposes of this definition, requests made by news media and non-profit, scientific, or academic organizations shall not be considered in calculating the number of requests made in the time periods in this definition when the principal purpose of the requests is (i) to access and disseminate information concerning news and current or passing events, (ii) for articles of opinion or features of interest to the public, or (iii) for the purpose of academic, scientific, or public research or education.

Janet Gray and David Wesner have repeatedly ignored state law in favor of delaying the Village’s responses.  In every instance wherein Wesner has issued a “recurrent requester” notice, Hansen responded with additional information about his news media credentials, and asked if the Village needed any further information. 

However, Gray and Wesner have never once replied.  In the past four months, both Village Officials have ignored dozens of communications from Check CU about their unlawful FOIA delays and denials.  The Village of Rantoul often takes months to supply public records that should be supplied within five business days. 

Check CU’s FOIA request for the 2015 officer involved shooting, along with the Rantoul’s “recurrent requester” designation is provided below.  As with every prior instance, Wesner and Gray have never responded to Hansen’s attempts to communicate his news media credentials.  For this request, Village Administrator Scott Eisenhauer was also included in some correspondence, so he is aware of the tactics that Wesner and Gray have been utilizing for FOIA requests.

In addition to ignoring the news media exception, Wesner also sent his response letter late, and he over-counted the number of past FOIA requests sent by Check CU.